A decommissioned Soviet-era aircraft carrier that became a famous theme park in China was badly damaged in a massive fire on Friday, during what the local authority said was a refit.
The blaze aboard Minsk began at 4 p.m. local time in the Nantong Suxitong Science and Technology Industrial Park. No casualties had been reported as of Friday night and the cause of the accident was under investigation.
But the Minsk's superstructure partially collapsed during the inferno, said the local fire department, commenting on social media images taken at the weekend.
Firefighters managed to control and extinguish the fire by Sunday, posts show. Minsk was moored in a lagoon at the west of the Sutong Yangtze River Bridge, located south of Nantong in Jiangsu province in southeastern China.
The Minsk was the second of the four Kiev-class aircraft carriers that served the Soviet and Russian navies from 1978 to 1993. It had a displacement of 41,380 tons, capable of carrying around 30 fighter jets and helicopters while heavily armed like a cruiser with anti-ship and anti-air missiles.
The Russian Pacific Fleet's ship was first sold for scrap to a South Korean company in 1995 with sister ship Novorossiysk after decommissioning. A Chinese company purchased the Minsk three years later with a plan to turn it into a military theme park. Refitting work was completed in 2000.
When the Minsk arrived in China, the Chinese navy did not have an aircraft carrier of its own in service, and the rare sight proved a tourist attraction.
It became the centerpiece of the Minsk World, a military theme park in the city of Shenzhen in southern China, from 2000 until its closure in 2016. It was one of the most iconic attractions in the city, and the local authority promoted it with the slogan of "Go to Shenzhen, see the aircraft carrier!"
According to Chinese media, the owner of the Minsk signed a deal with the Nantong Suxitong Science and Technology Industrial Park in 2014 in which the aircraft carrier would move to Nantong. It was towed to Zhoushan in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang for refit two years later.
However, the Minsk faced an uncertain fate since its departure from Shenzhen. The original plan for it was to be a part of the Nantong Yangtze River Aircraft Carrier Tourism Resort, which would open to the public in 2022. However, construction work did not commence in 2021 as scheduled.
During its time at the technology park, workers would go aboard the Minsk to perform all kinds of work, including carrying construction materials to the aircraft carrier, according to a Chinese media report in January.
The recent plan for the Minsk before the fire was to turn it into part of the national defense science education base. Its upgrade and refit were expected in March and was aimed to open before October 1, the National Day of China.
It is now unclear whether the Minsk, will be repaired, sold off for scrap, or possibly used as target practice for Chinese anti-ship missiles.
A sister ship, the Kiev, was sold in 1996 to a theme park in Tianjin, a city in northern China facing the Bohai Sea. It was developed into the country's first aircraft carrier hotel in 2011.
Meanwhile, China's first operational aircraft carrier Liaoning, began construction as Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier Riga in 1985. It was renamed Varyag in 1990, but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union the following year, construction was halted, and it was put up for sale by Ukraine.
The unfinished Varyag was sold in 1998 and arrived at Dalian in northeastern China in 2002 after a lengthy tow that saw the aircraft carrier transit the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It was commissioned as the Liaoning in 2012 after years of rebuild and was combat-ready in 2016.
Fires on large warships are rare but not unheard of. On July 12, 2020, USS Bonhomme Richard, one of the United States Navy's amphibious assault ships, caught fire during maintenance at Naval Base San Diego in California. The ship was burned for four days, with 63 people injured.
Due to the expensive cost and lengthy time to return it to service, the Navy decided to decommission the Bonhomme Richard earlier than scheduled. It was retired in April 2021 and sold for scrap.
China has launched three aircraft carriers so far with two of them in operational status. Besides the Liaoning, the Shandong is the second Chinese aircraft carrier in service. The third "flat-top" is the Fujian which is currently undergoing sea trials.
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